Dr Reddy's ties up with UK-based research organisation

Hyderabad-based Dr Reddy’s Laboratories has entered into a research partnership with UK-based contract research organisation Argenta.

Argenta will apply its integrated drug discovery platform and expertise to find potential new drug targets for Dr Reddy’s in the area of pain and inflammation.

A spokesperson at Dr Reddy’s confirmed the development, but declined to provide financial implications of the deal.

Four years ago, the company had announced a similar agreement with Argenta in the area of respiratory treatment. The spokesperson said the earlier research tie-up was progressing well and Pulmagen, Argenta’s respiratory therapy division, continued to work on potential drug candidates. “It is in the pre-clinical development stage.”

According to Argenta, the aim of the collaboration is to deliver high quality development candidates to support Dr Reddy’s research efforts for proprietary products.

In a statement, John Montana, managing director of Argenta, said the company would work with Dr Reddy’s to identify “novel and differentiated drug candidates for multiple targets meeting unmet clinical needs in pain and inflammation”.

Dr Reddy’s had reorganised its research operations in July 2009 after it transferred all its new drug discovery capabilities to Aurigene, a wholly-owned independent subsidiary.

It had also announced the creation of a new team to focus on proprietary products development, which will be responsible for building the proprietary, branded R&D portfolio in collaboration with various partners and service providers.

This organisation was supposed to work with Aurigene and other discovery biotechs such as Argenta to ensure effective management of the ongoing and future drug discovery programmes.

As part of the reorganisation, the company had announced plans to close down its Atlanta Research facility in the US.

Argenta’s contract research includes expertise in medicinal chemistry, computer-aided drug discovery, in vitro biology, analytics, in vivo pharmacokinetics, pharmacology and world-leading respiratory models.